I'll admit to a certain aesthetic weakness for a taxidermied specimen. Maybe it's ironic. Maybe it's the easy appeal of kitsch. De gustibus non desputandum est*. I have yet to act on the impulse, but I do spare a wistful thought for the ones that got away...

Like that awful stuffed red fox that I did not buy at auction –– it went over my $20 limit a lot faster than you might expect, given that its feet were visibly nailed to a chipboard base.

Or the full-body white-tail buck for a single Benjamin? It was the artist's first attempt, and I had one crisp Benjamin of mad-money in my wallet. I might have strapped the creature to the top of the mini-van...SO many practical jokes left unplayed with that bad boy. With four caster wheels and some 80-lb-test monofilament, I know it would have been a legendary traffic-calming measure.